Blue Warrior (4 page)

The bottom line for African governments, even the despotic ones, was that they were beginning to count the true costs of doing business with a predatory partner like China and found the transactions wanting. They were changing up the rules of the Chinese game with the help of the opportunistic West. It was a worrying proposition for the Politburo. The general secretary himself had visited the African continent on his first official overseas tour abroad to underscore China’s interest in the region, and its concerns.

“Thank you for the excellent presentation, Mr. Li,” the chairman said as the lights went up. The MSS analyst bowed gratefully and took his seat. The chairman continued. “The Standing Committee has decided to draw a line in the sand in Mali. We want to create a new model of
secure
cooperation and development for our other African partners. The future of China depends upon it. That is why I am calling upon the resolute Mr. Zhao Yi to represent us in the Malian venture.” The chairman waved a hand at his nephew, who stood, beaming with confidence. All eyes turned to him.

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I won’t let China down.” He bowed respectfully to his uncle, then the room.

The chairman himself led the others in a round of applause.

5

The village of Anou
Kidal Region, Northeastern Mali

1 May

T
he village slept this time of day. No one would come to the shop until later. The relentless heat blanketed everything. But Ibrahim couldn’t sleep. The curse of advancing age, he supposed.

The shopkeeper felt the gentle breeze of the old GE oscillating fan on his back. The aluminum blades were bent, rattling the little wire cage enclosing them. Ibrahim didn’t care. The rattling sound comforted him. So did the heat and the sun. He liked familiar things these days, even the unpleasant ones.

He glanced out of his doorway into the little village square. A half dozen mud-brick buildings just like his faced the old well, but his was the only shop. One hundred and seven people last count, mostly women, children, and old men like him. That made him the village elder, in deed if not in title. He wore that responsibility like the black
tagelmust
wrapped around his head and face. All of the young men were gone, shepherding their flocks or driving trucks in the south.

Or riding with Mossa Ag Alla.

If he was a young man, he’d be in the hills with Mossa, too. Both he and Mossa were Kel Tamasheq, were they not? People of the Tamasheq tongue? Not Tuaregs
,
as the outsiders called his people. Different
classes, yes. Mossa of the Ihaggaren nobility, and warriors; Ibrahim of the vassal Imrad—traders and shepherds. But Chief Mossa cared not for such distinctions. Only his people. Imohar. Free people. It was the new way, and Ibrahim agreed with it. The world was changing, and it was the better way. Especially now with all of the troubles.

Ibrahim’s anxiety spiked. The
misbaha
prayer beads in his right hand sped faster through his callused fingertips as he touched an amulet unconsciously with his left. He detested the jihadist Ansar Dine, his own people, or so they claimed. But they cared for Mali more than the rights of the Imohar. The al-Qaeda Salafists cared for neither Mali nor the Kel Tamasheq. Indeed, they detested even the prayer beads. Ibrahim was glad the French had driven them out, and glad the French, too, had left again. All of them had come and now all had left, and that was a fine thing, he thought.

He stepped back from the doorway and glanced at the far wall. A yellowed French military map was pinned neatly to it, the ancient folds forming a grid. In the bottom right-hand corner in minuscule numbers and letters his dimming eyes could no longer read it gave its origin:
Le Département du Armée de Terre, 1937.

Thirty years before, his wife had drawn a small red X on the map where she thought the village was located, in case a traveler ever wanted to know where he was standing. Ibrahim had laughed at her. Only Imohar and other nomads who knew of the well ever bothered to come here to water their camels and flocks, so they would already know where it was, he insisted. They yelled at each other for an hour over that one. But the X stayed, and so did the map. Ibrahim smiled. But that was a long time ago. At least the map was still here, and so was the X, and so was the village.

—

I
brahim lit another cigarette and glanced at the clock-faced thermometer. The red hand pointed at 41c/107f. Not unusual for the desert this time of year, especially in this part of the region. The hottest time of the
day. Soon it would cool again, as it should. A man couldn’t sleep when it was too hot. He glanced around the shop—really, just the front room of a three-room building where he and his grandson lived. Not like a real shop he’d once seen in Timbuktu, before the troubles. He wondered if it was still intact. He heard rumors that many shops in that fabled city had been burned to the ground by the AQS if they sold what was
haraam
.

The three wooden shelves screwed into the adobe wall were full. Toothpaste, razors, gum, canned goods—meat, milk, fruit. Even a red-and-white cartoon of Lucky Strikes, the brand the Chinese requested when they passed through two months ago. Ibrahim paid hard cash in Kidal for the expensive American brand, but the Chinese hadn’t returned. That was unfortunate. The Chinese had paid too much for the poor ones he had in the shop, and they didn’t bargain, which was a blessing. Just paid his price. He thought again about opening the carton and selling the cigarettes one at a time, the only way his friends could afford them. But perhaps the Chinese would return soon.
Inshallah
.

His grandson would be home soon from the government school in the next village. Eight years old and already doing higher math
.
Ibrahim was proud of him. The boy would someday make a fine shopkeeper. Tonight he would feed him, then send him to the widow’s house with her cell phone. It was on the shop floor connected to the car battery, charging. It wasn’t much money for the service, but every little coin still helped fill the purse. The cell phone couldn’t make a signal here near the well, but it could a half kilometer east outside of the village. The widow could still walk that far and back, and tomorrow was her regular day to take a call from her son working in Bamako and she wanted her phone fully charged. Life was good in Bamako, her son said. Many Chinese, and much money to be made. And peace.

Peace is better than money, Ibrahim thought. Like cold water from that well in the square.

He spun his beads, waiting for the boy.

Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park
Mozambique

“I’ve lost it, Johnny.”

“Lost what?”

“The video image.” Sandra pulled the Fat Shark goggles off. “It just went blank.”

Shit. There goes the picnic, Johnny thought. “Let’s check the control station.” Johnny and Sandra climbed into the back of the Rover. She was right. The video image was gone.

“We lost the video signal.” Johnny realized how stupidly obvious he sounded.

“Now what?”

Good question. The Solar Falcon was preprogrammed to automatically return to base when it sensed either low battery or signal disruption of any sort. Johnny checked the monitors. At least the Solar Falcon was still broadcasting a GPS signal. The drone was turning a lazy figure eight, but not returning to station.

“That’s weird,” Sandra said. “Why is it doing that?”

Johnny shrugged. “Something wrong with the motherboard, I guess.”

“I thought you said these things are reliable. We paid a lot of money for it.”

“The Solar Falcon is as reliable as they get. But it’s still just a machine. Things happen.”

Something caught Sandra’s eye. She leaned over. Glasses tinked. “What’s this?”

“Nothing.”

“There’s a picnic basket back here. Looks like some good stuff.”

“The hotel concierge pulled it together for me,” Johnny confessed. “The basket, too.”

She smiled mischievously. “So that’s why Pearce isn’t here today.”

Johnny frowned, worried about his friend. “Not exactly.”

Sandra pointed at the GPS monitor again. “So what should we do?”

“We jump in the Rover and go find us a Falcon.”

—

T
he small herd of white rhinos chuffed and snorted contentedly as they fed on the grass beneath their heavy feet. Two calves brayed as they chased each other in circles around a big female, her ear tagged with a great yellow tab marked “WWA.” A nearby bull swung his heavy head with its menacing long horn in their direction, just checking to make sure no threats had startled the bellowing calves.

A thousand feet above the herd, Sandra’s Silent Falcon drone was still making a lazy figure eight, its camera still pointing at the big female. Had the rhinos any inclination to gaze skyward, their famously poor eyesight wouldn’t have allowed them to notice the aircraft at its current height, but even their excellent hearing couldn’t have picked up its whisper-quiet motors, not even at two hundred feet.

But a four-wheel-drive ground vehicle? That caught the herd’s attention, though nobody stopped feeding. Heavy, tube-shaped ears perked up and rotated in unison in the direction of the engine rumbling toward them from a distance. As the sound edged nearer, heads lifted warily. The big bull grunted, then turned and trotted heavily for a nearby stand of acacia trees for shelter. The others followed swiftly behind him, the trumpeting calves falling in line behind their mothers. The female with the yellow tag took the rear and felt the bee as it zipped past.

Only, it wasn’t a bee.

It was a bullet. Then a hundred.

The air roared with gunfire.

Men shouted.

The bull had led them all into a trap.

The tagged female ran. Her flanks suddenly stung with heat. Her sides ached as if tree branches were thrust into her ribs. She bellowed in pain.

They were all bellowing.

Except the babies. They cawed like birds, high-pitched and keening.

The tagged female dropped to her knees. Saw the flash of metal in her dim eye. Searing pain exploded in her snout as the machete blade
thwock
ed into the bone just above the horn.

Two dozen men. Black, like shadows, swarmed the herd. Rhinos down. The men circled them. Arms swinging, blades chopping. Blood and skin and bone flecked into the air with each strike. Men pulling hard on the horns while others chopped at the roots. Panicked eyes rolled white in shock as blood seeped into the grass.

And then the big bull roared.

He was on his knees but still swinging that giant horn and roaring, knocking a shadow man to the ground.

More gunfire. The bull’s guts spilled into the grass.

And the last baby screamed.

—

T
he Land Rover bounced over the uneven terrain, but Johnny kept the pedal floored. He kept one eye on the GPS locator on the dashboard and one on the windshield.

Sandra pointed at a thick stand of acacia trees looming in the distance. Bright red burning bush creepers flowered brightly in the tree branches. “They must be in there.” Sandra had lost visual contact with the herd when the video feed was cut but the falcon was still tracking them, apparently. A handheld tablet monitor was in her lap now.

Johnny yanked the wheel hard to avoid a fallen log, then pointed the Land Rover toward the acacia stand. A path of beaten-down grass wound around toward the back. “Looks like our rhinos were here after all,” Sandra said, nodding at the grass track.

The Rover sped around the bend and past the first tree. Johnny slammed the brakes.

The man standing in his way was Chinese, tall, broad-shouldered. His face was edged and hard, but creased with a smile. He was focused intently on the dark gray Silent Falcon fuselage high above doing loops, guided by the radio transmitter in his hands. He didn’t budge despite the Rover’s skidding stop just ten feet from him. He wore green camo
without insignia, but his bearing was pure military. An operator, Johnny guessed. Special forces. They all looked the same, no matter where they came from. A combat knife was strapped to the man’s leg.

“Who is that?” Sandra asked, pushing open the door.

Johnny grabbed her wrist. “No, stay here.”

“I’m coming with you,” she said.

“You wait here. I’ll check it out. This is my rice bowl, remember?”

“Careful, Johnny. Please.”

“I’m a cop. I’m always careful.” He flashed her a smile.

Johnny shut the door behind him and approached the lone Chinese. Johnny’s Glock 19 was in his waistband at the small of his back. The smiling man finally turned his gaze toward him.

“An expensive toy,” Guo Jun said, nodding at the sky.

“Not a toy. A camera, watching everything you do.”

“And recording it, too, I’m certain,” he said. “I should like to see the pretty pictures.”

“Then buy your own.”

“Why should I? I have yours now.” Guo looked back up at the Silent Falcon.

“Because it doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to the World Wildlife Alliance.” He threw a thumb over his shoulder. “To that lady in the truck.”

“She won’t be needing it anytime soon, Johnny.”

Johnny startled at the sound of his name but hid it. “If you’re going to say my name, say it correctly.”

“And how is that?”

“For dickheads like you, it’s Mr. Paloma.”

“Too bad your name isn’t Troy Pearce. I was hoping to play a game with him today.” Guo’s eyes were still fixed on the plane.